GardenBook

 The winter photo-file project continues here. The virtual recycle bin is filled, emptied and filled again , freeing disc space for upcoming summer travels. Cleaning picture files is a lot like cleaning the guest room closet ; you make headway for a while and then you find a box , open it and end up sitting on the floor surrounded by your past.  The project slows and suspends itself - the worker has become distracted. Similar diversions impede progress with the digital images.  The photos on my external hard drive tell many stories, and for a gardener in January reliving summertime horticultural adventures keeps the gloom and cold at bay. One of my favorites is the story of Idyllunion.  Once upon a time out in cyber space a group of gardeners were pulled into the orbit of GardenWeb , an online forum that goes back to early days of the internet, and soldiers on to this day. A conversational offshoot of the perennials discussion group evolved as the members became vi...

 Les over at Tidewater Gardener posted a gentle challenge for fellow bloggers to post favorite images of 2012. This seemed like a fun and easy exercise, until I delved into my image files and found I had over 3,000 from 2012 alone. Part of my problem is the inability to dispassionately dispose of the marginal shots, and after installing new photo editing software this fall, I am using these to practice my still novice editing skills. At some point the external hard drive will run out of space and decisions will have to be made. For the time being I wallow in my crop tools, clarity, contrast, noise reduction etc.  I took several road trips this year , and have selected photos from each. My spring road trip was a short journey to UC Santa Cruz Arboretum. I took a couple hundred shots there, but I'm partial to this one.   In February I took  a Sunday morning drive to Bodega Bay, and as luck would have it , the skies were fairly clear and the Echiums ...